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Adding a math word wall to my classroom completely changed my teaching. A couple years before making the jump to teaching high school special education math, I taught mainstream Algebra and Algebra 2 in Boston. My classroom was right next to the classroom of a Geometry teacher who would later go on to become Teacher of the Year. Lining the bulletin boards and walls of his classroom, from floor to ceiling, were vocabulary words with drawings and examples making the most amazing display. At the time I thought it was a bit extreme. I mean, aren't these kids in high school? Since then, I have realized how powerful math word walls are - especially those that show the vocabulary in context .
To up my odds of landing a full-time teaching job, I was a substitute teacher for a year. I'll never forget a job I took in a kindergarten class. The letter of the day was K. Some kids could write "kite", "kat" (English is so weird), while other kids couldn't even write a K. The discrepancy in abilities between kids in a kindergarten class completely blew my mind. I helped one kid write a K and the look on his face! I will never forget that moment.

In all of our classrooms there is a wide range of abilities. Some kids are above grade level while others may be years behind. What I like the most about word walls is that they are always there offering information to students who need it. Whether they are too shy to ask a question or need a quick reminder, or maybe they have a hard time concentrating so do a lot of looking around the room. While they are glancing around, maybe they'll learn something new. Word walls allow kids to access the curriculum at their level and continue to offer support every day. I write more about this in the post 5 Ways Math Word Walls Have Changed My Teaching .
In this post I'll share photos of my own classroom's word walls (like the photo at the top) as well as photos of word walls I have made for teachers by request. This post is linked in 8 Out-of-the-Box Ideas for Teaching Algebra and Geometry on the We Are Teachers blog .

My teacher back in Boston neighbor was absolutely right in putting it all out there like that. If you think about it, there's a measly 5 year age difference between a 4th grader and a 9th grader. Yes, kids do grow quick, but what is it about those 5 short years that suddenly allows students to remember and recall everything and no longer need visual reminders?

When my husband moved from teaching elementary school to high school he was a little worried. I told him that high schoolers are just little kids in big bodies. It's true! They still need the support of word walls as much as the little ones do. For me, adding references to my walls not only made my classroom a more inviting place to learn, it also made it one giant reference sheet. This immediately lowered my students' anxiety levels to where memorization and past misconceptions were no longer sticking points.

Since starting at my current school, I have taught Geometry, Biology, Consumer Math and Algebra 2. Since Algebra 1 is so important, we have references for it too. Here are some photos of the word walls in my classroom.

I recently made a Geometry word wall and a super sweet teacher sent me this photo of it hanging in her classroom. Here is my own photo of some of the included parts up close:

Here is a closeup of the transformations section:

Next up is our wall of Algebra, Geometry and Algebra 2 formulas. I like to think of this wall as "the hodgepodge", though I have since updated most of my math word walls .

The , slope formula, y=mx+b, and green exponents posters are all also made from cut colored paper like the angle pairs poster in the previous photo. Here's a close up of the exponents posters:

This exponent rules posters is made out of cut paper too. I added exponent rules into my 8th grade math word wall. Here is a photo of some of the graphing references included. You can also see all of the middle school math word walls I have made in the post Middle School Math Word Wall Ideas .

An scatter plots:

This PEMDAS mobile was a recent addition.

Our Algebra 2 word wall has grown a lot over the years. Teachers have asked me to make parent graphs for nonlinear functions and also expand the word wall in other areas. It's gone through a lot of updates! :) Here's a photo of our reference for quadratics.

We teach a lot of vertex form in Algebra 2 so we reference these 3 anchor charts for nonlinear equations all year. These are updated printable versions of cut paper versions I finally retired this year. It was time.

I love catching students glancing at our word walls for hints. To me, knowing how to access information is just as important as the information itself. Every year I add more and more to our classroom word walls. The more I add, the better things get. One of the
quadratics posters that worked especially well during our combined graphing calculator/projectile motion unit - a unit that is VERY hard at first for my students - was this one.

It shows good cursor placements for finding maximum points and zeros. My students get confused by "left bound" and "right bound" and this poster all but completely eliminates this confusion.

These factoring anchor charts hang in my room to remind my students how to factor trinomials and binomials. I always find my students have a harder time retaining how to factor binomials than trinomials!

In an earlier post I wrote about our classroom Fridge, an area in our classroom where students are invited to display their hard work. I am always surprised that even my seniors would rather hang their work in our classroom than take it home. Math pennants are another fun way to display student work. You can download free math pennants though this link .

Having a reference in our room for the
language of math has helped so much, especially for those small but powerful words like "of" and "is". When kids start seeing Math as a language that can be translated into symbols... WHOA watch out World! :)
I recently combined all of my math word walls into a discounted.

Having word walls in my classroom has completely changed my teaching. I feel like a better teacher and my students feel less anxious and more confident in their ability to do hard math. The more I add to my classroom walls the more empowered my students feel and become.

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Adding a math word wall to my classroom completely changed my teaching. A couple years before making the jump to teaching high school special education math, I taught mainstream Algebra and Algebra 2 in Boston. My classroom was right next to the classroom of a Geometry teacher who would later go on to become Teacher of the Year.

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A math art project is a great way to encourage kids who love numbers to get creative and artistic kids to think about how mathematics and art work together. This rotational symmetry art project is just the ticket. As you will see the results of experimenting with rotational symmetry combines grooviness and exactness (such a...
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Math Art Archives | What Do We Do All Day

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A math art project is a great way to encourage kids who love numbers to get creative and artistic kids to think about how mathematics and art work together. This rotational symmetry art project is just the ticket. As you will see the results of experimenting with rotational symmetry combines grooviness and exactness (such a...

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Check out these free STEM websites for kids: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They are designed for grades 6-12, and I have personally used many of these resources to help me get through school! As technology is ruling our society, STEM has been growing over the past few years and computers are more important than ever. STEM websites can help enhance learning!

Disclaimer: I make a small commission from some of the links on this site. This does not affect you, the buyer. It allows me to keep the site up and the content free. You can read my full disclosure here. Thank you so much for understanding!

Free Science Websites For Grades 6-12

From worksheets to videos, Biology Corner has resources for biology, AP biology, and anatomy. (This is from a secular perspective though)
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a fantastic website that helps break down math and science through videos. If you're struggling with a certain subject, Khan Academy is a great way

Hippo Campus finds free videos from other sites and compiles them on one simple website. They have 13 categories; including mostly math and science.

Focused on AP Biology, this site lists free AP Biology resources, from Powerpoint lectures to study guides.
Chem Tutor
Chemistry can be difficult; but Chem Tutor helps break it down. It has broken-down sections for the math involved in chemistry, reactions, the Periodic table, and more.
ChemSpider
Having trouble with a chemical equation? Enter it in here for instant answers! You can use structure files, systematic names, trade names, registry names, and SMILES.

About.com is full of resources simple explained for today's generation. Many of their resources or more textbook-free fun projects exploring some of the more everyday aspects of chemistry, but they do have many chemistry lesson gems.
Ptable
Welcome to this dynamic periodic table! Click on an element to send you directly to the Wikipedia site. They also have many features so you can show the table with different factors; such as labelled by melting point, boiling point, and more. Plus, it lists a ton of compounds for each element!

I love interactive STEM websites. Like the above link, this site also has an interactive Periodic Table. Plus, it has free, colorful Periodic Tables you can print, and some other fun resources.
Periodic Table
Visual and interactive learner? When you click on each element of the Periodic Table, it leads you to fun images associated with that element, plus has stories and facts to help each element stick.

Periodic Videos is great for bringing a visual element to the elements. Once you click on a video with this STEM website, it leads you to a video on that element.
Memrise's Periodic Table
Memrise is best known for its foreign language resources. It is an app/site that associates each word, or in this case element, with an image. It was co-founded by world memory competitor Ed Cooke, who was featured in the New York Times bestseller Moonwalking With Einstein. With the method of loci "memory palace" system best known for its use in , you can mentally file these images to help memorize the Periodic Table in order. Crazy, and it works. With Memrise, I was able to memorize the Periodic Table in a week.

Mystery of Matter - in this three-part series narrated by Michael Emerson of Lost and Person of Interest, this docudrama takes you through the search of the elements, how the Periodic Table came to be, and how each element got their name. Great series I really enjoyed!

Bio Man Biology - learn about biology with this free website game and app! Learn about cells, body systems, and life chemistry.

Science Without a Textbook - explore 30+ ways to teach science without a textbook, in a way students of every learning style can learn how to love science.

Free Math Websites For Grades 6-12

The Math Page probably saved my life during high school. They offer free courses for algebra, trig, geometry, and precalculus - all broken down with simplified text and visuals.

Written by a woman with a Master's degree in Mathematics, I've always enjoyed the way Purple Math breaks things down. She has resources for 5th grade to 12th, college math, and specialized test prep.

Khan Academy is free, and specializes in high-quality videos for upper-level math. The only thing I didn't really like about Khan Academy, was for some of my upper-level homeschool math, often Khan Academy would explain the basics, but they didn't have resources for some of the more complex versions! But, Khan Academy is one of the top STEM websites out there.

Algebra Help is filled with worksheets, lessons, and calculators designed to make a little easier for students to learn. Putting in equations will give you instant answers, as well as a detailed explanation.

Type in your question, get instant results for Wolfram Alpha. This is one of my favorite free homeschool math resources!

Select your subject (algebra, trig, precalculus, calculus, etc.) and get instant answers with Mathway's calculator.
Quick Math
Enter your tricky math formulas into Quick Math for instant answers, as it simplifies your equation.

Math Drills has over 50,000 free math worksheets on a huge list of subjects!

Math is a key piece of STEM, including coding. Find a variety of free math worksheets for upper-level mathematics.

Kuta Software has many customizable paid worksheets with their purchase plan, but they also have many helpful free worksheets!

Soft Schools has mostly elementary level resources, but includes quite a bit of upper-level math worksheets, including some AP prep quizzes.

Grab these upper-level math worksheets, mostly designed in a fun game format.

Free Tech Websites for Grades 6-12
eGFI - Dream Up Your Future
eGFI is dedicated to encouraging STEM for grades K-12. They have resources for kids, as well as professionals in a variety of STEM fields.
Code Academy
One of the best STEM websites, Code Academy is an incredible free site that has coding courses. Their courses include HTML and CSS, Ruby, Python, Java Script, jQuery, PHPs, and APIs.

Code.org is a site designed to teach students how to code. Their site has resources, plus gives links to tutorial apps, extra helpful videos, and more.

Whenever I have questions about HTML code, W3schools is normally my #1 source. One of my favorite STEM websites, their site provides coding tutorials mainly for web developers.

I heard about Alice from the bittersweet The Last Lecture, written by a computer science Carnegie Mellon professor. Alice is educational software that teaches students computer programming in a 3D environment. It is a student-led project designed by Carnegie Mellon, and is free.

If you're a Khan Academy fan, they also have free computer science resources. Classes include HTML, CSS, SQL, and Java Script.
Code School
Code School has 61 interactive coding courses, and nearly 3000 coding challenges. You can get started for free, but plans are $14-$30 a month. (In addition, they have sales throughout the year.)
Science | How Stuff Works
How Stuff Works can often bring in the practical side of learning. Explore different innovations, and how they're being used today!

For students interested in aerospace, check out NASA's websites for rich, picture-heavy resources.

Engineer Your Life explores the careers of women who use STEM to change the world. I'm not a fan of their girls-only slant, but enjoy the fact it has some great career resources and ideas for those interested in STEM.

Students from K-12 under 21 (including homeschool students) can enter Toshiba's technology contest, ExploraVision, aimed at inventing new technology to help make our world better. Prizes include Toshiba PCs, and four first prize teams will receive a savings bond worth $10,000.

Google Science Fair is a worldwide online science competition open up to students ages 13-18. The grand prize is $50,000; and they also have other $15,000 scholarships.
Apple's World Wide Developers Conference
Apple's World Wide Developers Conference (also known as WWDC) is an annual conference that unveil's Apple's latest technology. Apple grants scholarships to students worldwide to attend the event. To qualify, you must submit an Apple app that you coded and developed yourself.

Creation Crate - The Creation Crate encourages technology and building (engineering) with their monthly "creation crate" science kit. These science kits are unique in that they require a function that uses programming in order to work.
What are your favorite STEM websites?

Samantha is a teen entrepreneur and a former unsocialized homeschooler from Indiana, USA. Samantha is interested in WWII history, Israel, and politics. Her specialities are words, frugality, homeschooling, and procrastination. When not blogging, Samantha spends her time reading, trying to speak Hebrew, and wasting time on Pinterest.

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Free STEM Websites for Grades 6-12: Middle School and High School

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Check out these free STEM websites for kids: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They are designed for grades 6-12, and I have personally used many of these resources to help me get through school! As technology is ruling our society, STEM has been growing over the past few years and computers are more important than ever.

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http://www.ct4me.net Computing Technology for Math Excellence is devoted to the standards movement and integrating technology into teaching and learning and into K-12 mathematics and calculus.